Nl Report

Last Week In Review

ST. LOUIS — Blas Minor (the Pittsburgh pitcher, not the constellation) first buzzed Mark Grace, then threw behind him Monday. That was in response to Bob Scanlan's hitting Carlos Garcia earlier.

Grace wasn't surprised. The only surprise was Minor's poor marksmanship.

Nor did Grace charge the mound. When a couple of Cubs sprang out of the dugout, Grace tried to wave them back in. The players froze-but, too close to the mound to retreat, went for Minor and forced things out of control.

This isn't meant to compare or contrast with what happened Wednesday night in Texas-Blas Minor isn't Nolan Ryan-but the class act in this incident was Grace.

"Grace," said Pirates manager Jim Leyland, "was professional. Grace didn't go to the mound. Mark Grace says he's going to take one for the team because he knew it was going to happen.

"Well, that indicates to me that Mark Grace and a lot of other Cubs must have felt that he (Scanlan) was throwing at him (Garcia)."

Not exactly.

"Whether Bob meant to or not was not the point," Grace said. "The point was, it happened. I honestly don't think Bob was trying to hit him, but Bob does hit guys. He runs balls inside and he hits guys, and the way it looked, it looked like he was doing it on purpose.

"So I have to take one for the team in that situation. That's why I was waving everybody back. I'll take care of the situation myself."

Keep it: The Cardinals' Mark Whiten, whose fist has personal knowledge of Jack McDowell, on why higher fines won't deter hitters from charging pitchers: "They're making enough money to pay them, so they're not going to worry about that. I guarantee you that if those guys get thrown at again or whatever, they're not going to hesitate going back out there. They ain't going to be thinking about no fine."

Yikes: The Giants are on a pace to win more games than anyone in the National League since the 1909 Pirates won 110. Odds are against them breaking the record of 116 games, set by the 1906 Cubs in a season both shorter (154 games) and shortened (rainouts made it 152), but the pace is quickening.

Since April, San Francisco has improved its record each month: 15-9 in April, 18-9 in May, 19-9 in June, 18-8 in July.

And in July, the Giants were without six regulars at one point or another with injuries.

The Braves? Said David Justice: "We feel like we have to win every game."

That's no pillow: Baseball, not just the Pirates, lost Andy Van Slyke for two months because the pads on the outfield walls at St. Louis' Busch Stadium couldn't keep his collarbone from shattering on impact.

"It's unfortunate," said Van Slyke, "that a wall that should've been padded better caused the injury."

Van Slyke broke the collarbone leaping-and failing-to catch an Erik Pappas homer on June 14. Similar, though not as severe, injuries to Houston's Casey Candaele and the Cardinals' own Ray Lankford moved the Players Association to formally complain about the inadequate padding.

Yet no one has filed any complaints about Wrigley Field's unpadded outfield walls. Beneath those fluffy leaves are hard branches and harder brick.

Van Slyke has no problem with that.

"The difference is here in Wrigley, guys are going to respect the wall," Van Slyke said. "They know exactly what's going to happen when they take the next two steps, so they back off.

"Now, when you go to Busch, where the padding's right against the concrete and the padding's inadequate, you have a false sense of security. It's not by accident that three guys in half a season hurt their shoulders on a wall. It wasn't like I was going very hard into the wall, either."

This isn't easy, folks: Shawon Dunston was stung early by comparisons with, among others, L.A.'s Darryl Strawberry, who returned more quickly from his own back surgery. Now Strawberry is out, probably for the rest of the year, because he tried to do too much too soon.

"I was hoping he'd come back," said Dunston, "to show me and everybody else that you can come back from this back problem quicker than you expect.

"Everybody is different."

Milwaukee infielder Billy Spiers had a back operation in December 1991, tried to come back last year and couldn't.

Everybody is different. But, unable to make the quick moves he once could, Spiers, 18 months later, is now playing right field.